Energy efficiency could cut NHS costs by £400m

With the growing influence of digital applications in building maintenance, and the considerable pressures on NHS budgets, the Building Engineering Services Association (BESA), examines some of the latest digital advances, and the potential cost savings for the health sector by harnessing them. One key focus is the SFG20 maintenance standard owned and maintained by the Association – ‘the UK’s leading professional body for building and engineering services contractors’ – which is about to be expanded again ‘to provide comprehensive support for healthcare facilities by incorporating a Healthcare Functional Set developed in collaboration with IHEEM’. The new ‘module’ will be launched at this month’s Healthcare Estates event.

The NHS could reduce its annual running costs by more than £400 m if it adopted a series of energy saving measures, according to expert research. The Securing Healthy Returnsreport1 produced by the Sustainable Development Unit (SDU) for NHS England and Public Health England, and published in June this year, analysed 35 sustainability measures that it said could also reduce annual carbon emissions by one million tonnes by the end of this decade. Eighteen of the measures considered are linked to energy saving, with staff energy awareness and ‘behaviour change’ said to be capable of reducing energy costs by £21.5 m, and high efficiency lighting to cut such costs by £7.2 m. 

Lowering set points on heating systems by 1 ˚C would, the report said,  cut £ 6.2 m from the NHS energy bill, while switching to Combined Heat and Power (CHP) would save the service £26.4 m annually.